Captain Fantastic [2016] ★★★

In a summer filled with lousy remakes and crappy aliens (I’m looking at you, “Independence Day”), it’s refreshing to encounter a movie as original as “Captain Fantastic”. It’s one of my favorite movies of the season. Viggo Mortensen is a standout, playing a devoted father who lives with his six young children deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. They’ve never seen the outside world…until a tragedy strikes and they are forced to leave their isolated society for the very first time. The story is best described as a dramedy, but like many of the best films in that genre it’s rooted in truth and features honest observations about family dynamics, adolescence and our modern society. You might think that Mortensen’s character is bad for isolating his children from the world. He isn’t. He’s imperfect, like the rest of us, and in the face of some incredible challenges, he tries to be a better dad. That’s what I loved about “Captain Fantastic”: it makes us reflect about how we choose to live our lives and how we always strive to be better people. I can’t say more without revealing key points. But I can tell you that the overall result is endearing and above all, poignant. Don’t miss it. It’s a keeper.